1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a hard disk drive, and in particular, to a head loading device and method in a hard disk drive, for stably loading heads, which are fixed at a plurality of suspensions installed on an arm of an actuator, between disks during an assembly of the hard disk drive.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a hard disk drive, a magnetic head (hereinafter, referred to as a head) generally reads or writes data from or on a disk being a magnetic recording medium, while moving over the disk at an infinitesimal flying height. The head is fixed to a suspension by soldering, and a signal at a head gap is transmitted to a flexible circuit board through a head wire. The head should move almost in contact with a disk surface to read and write data from and on the disk, which is enabled by flying the head with an air flow generated by the rotating force of the disk. In addition, a jig is used to dispose the head between disk surfaces without any damage to the head during an assembly of the hard disk drive.
An earlier head loading device in a hard disk drive includes a spindle motor installed on a base plate, for rotating hard disks, and a plurality of disks stacked around a driving shaft of the spindle motor at regular intervals. Then, an actuator including magnetic heads, suspensions, an arm, a bobbin, and a voice coil is rotatably fixed on a portion of the base plate by a rotating shaft. A hole is formed on a portion of the arm. Subsequently, a jig is installed on the actuator, for inserting the heads of the actuator between the disks.
The jig has a rib-shaped connecting portion. A handle protrudes upward from an end portion of the connecting portion to enable manual operation, and an installation protrusion extends from under the handle to be inserted into the hole on the arm. Then, an installation plate extends perpendicularly downward from the other end portion of the connecting portion. A plurality of separation ribs are perpendicularly formed on an end of the inner surface of the installation plate, spaced from one another by a predetermined distance. The distance between the installation protrusion and the separation ribs in the jig is equal to that between the installation hole and the suspensions in the actuator.
An earlier process for loading the heads of the actuator between the disks using the jig is described as follows. The installation protrusion in the jig is inserted into the installation hole on the actuator. Then, each of the suspensions having the heads is inserted between the separation ribs. The separation ribs vertically widen the gap between the suspensions to enable the heads to position between the disks. Then, the actuator having the jig is manually pushed as far as the outer circumferences of the disks, and the jig is removed from the actuator by turning the handle and pulling up the jig.
However, the above earlier head loading device in the hard disk drive has separation ribs so short that the heads are guided only as far as the outer circumferences of the disks. Therefore, the disk surfaces are susceptible to scratches and pecks by manually guiding the heads directly to parking zones of the disks.
Also, U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,542 to Krajec et al. entitled HDA Headload Carriage Tooling, disclose a tool that loads magnetic heads onto the disk of a hard disk drive, the tool having a first arm which has an alignment block and a plurality of fingers, with the first arm cooperating with a second arm which has an alignment slot and a plurality of second fingers. It is disclosed the arms are coupled to an actuator which moves the arms in opposite directions to separate the first fingers from the second fingers, with movement of the arms also causing a first alignment surface of the alignment block to engage a second alignment surface of the alignment slot. It is disclosed the alignment surfaces are essentially parallel with the fingers and insure that the fingers translate relative to each other without any relative rotational movement.